While tensions are increasing between the US and Iran, Israel and Lebanon may finally be on the path toward diplomacy in order to reach an agreement over a hotly contested resource-rich maritime region. The greatest fear of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the United States, and of course, Israel, is the formation of what has…
When Israeli prime ministers are in trouble, facing difficult elections or a corruption scandal, the temptation has typically been for them to unleash a military operation to bolster their standing. In recent years, Gaza has served as a favourite punching bag. Benjamin Netanyahu is confronting both difficulties at once: a second round of elections in…
A state of de facto annexation already exists on the ground in most of the occupied West Bank. Almost two-thirds of the Palestinian territory, including most of its most fertile and resource-rich land, is under full Israeli control. About 400,000 Jewish settlers living there enjoy the full rights and privileges of Israeli citizens. At least 60…
The White House’s prolonged financial bullying of the Palestinian Authority (PA), the Palestinians’ government-in-waiting, has reached the point where there are now credible warnings that it is close to collapse. The crisis has offered critics further proof of the administration’s seemingly chaotic, often self-sabotaging approach to foreign policy matters. Meanwhile, US officials charged with resolving…
When an Arab emergency summit is called to convene, one would naturally assume the existence of an urgent Arab crisis which requires immediate attention. So, when king Salman of Saudi Arabia called for an emergency Arab summit to convene in Mecca, the holiest Muslim city, the natural assumption was that there is an urgent Arab…
Israel never loses an opportunity to promote what it perceives to be its interests. That any nation would do just that most of the time should surprise no one, but Israel is perhaps unique in terms of how assiduously it works at creating situations that favor it through the use of corruption of foreign governments…
